Underground
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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- The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground. - Frank Zappa
- "Ideas enter our above-ground culture through the underground. I suppose that is the kind of function that the underground plays, such as it is. That it is where the dreams of our culture can ferment and strange notions can play themselves out unrestricted. And sooner or later those ideas will percolate through into the broad mass awareness of the broad mass of the populace. Occulture, you know, that seems to be perhaps the last revolutionary bastion." -- Alan Moore
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In the dictionary
- Below the ground; below the surface of the Earth.
- There is an underground tunnel that takes you across the river.
- Hidden, furtive, secretive.
- These criminals operate through an underground network.
- Of music, art, etc, outside the mainstream.
Death of the underground
- "The web has extinguished the idea of a true underground. It’s too easy for anybody to find out anything now, especially as scene custodians tend to be curatorial, archivist types. And with all the mp3 and whole album blogs, it’s totally easy to hear anything you want to hear, in this risk-less, desultory way that has no cost, either financially or emotionally." Simon Reynolds via woebot.
Related
alternative - banned - censorship - clandestine - controversial - counterculture - crime - cult - drugs - economy - forbidden - grotto - hidden - illegal - illicit - independent - a glossary of the non-mainstream - overground - prohibition - resistance - secret - subculture - subversive - taboo - transgressive - underworld
Contrast
Namesakes
Bibliography
- Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century (1989) - Greil Marcus
- Outsiders as Innovators (1998) - Tyler Cowen
Introduction
It is not easy to define the underground. Zappa's quote "The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground." gives us an idea. The definition of underground culture I use, is, culture that has not reached the mainstream but that has gained popularity amongst a small and loyal audience [a subculture]. Actually, that is the same definition I give to cult as in cult movies.
One should should always remember that underground has a connotation of the illegal, the clandestine, the illicit; and a link with the adverse guerilla activities of the oppressed, most evidently displayed in the resistance movements of Europe during WWII.
To conclude::
- Underground as an adjective commonly refers to something that is either below the ground or outside of public consciousness. As a proper noun, the underground refers to subcultures.
By medium
- Underground comix, a term for non-mainstream comics
- Underground culture, a term to describe various alternative cultures
- Underground economy, commerce that is not taxed
- Underground film, cinema outside the commercial mainstream
- Underground literature, the history of clandestine publishing
- Underground music, music that has a certain following despite a moderate commercial success
- Underground press, the alternative print media in the late 1960s and early 1970s
- Underground resistance, nickname used for some resistance movements
By region
- Antwerp underground, under construction
- English underground
- French underground
- Italian underground, under construction
- Prague Underground
- Spanish underground
- UK Underground, a 1960s countercultural movement in the United Kingdom
See also